Dear Culturalist: Pot Shop Like a Pro

Dear Culturalist, I am supposed to hang out next week with this woman I barely know, and she knows a lot about weed and wants to go “pot shopping” with me. I’m kind of freaking out. How can I pick something great and not embarrass myself?

Disclaimer: To be honest, I’ve never bought weed from a dispensary. Well, sorry, that is a lie. I have, but I was too sick to go myself. I’ve bought a lot of weed on the street, though, but not in situations where you are able to look at the weed and beef the person if it isn’t good. I have chirped someone for shorting me and maybe paid them in change out of spite. Social norms are so strange.

Care less about what other people think until you couldn’t care less. One can know everything about weed without making other people feel bad about their level of weed knowledge.

If you hang out with this woman and don’t choose the greatest weed and she is rude about it, fuck her, but like not literally. Don’t fuck pot snobs because they are the worst. Half-kidding.

I’m not trying to suggest everyone should say all weed is great because there is terrible trash pot out there. I know because I’ve smoked it. I just hate people who hold their weed knowledge over other people to try to make them feel stupid or small.

I think there is something to be said for there being no shame in knowing more or less than another person, especially about cannabis. So don’t be a pot snob and also don’t care what this person thinks of you if they are one. I don’t care if they like you, and if you do, get over it.

Another option is to just get over being embarrassed. I mean like totally give up on experiencing the sensation of caring what other humans think. Don’t hurt anyone but instead just free yourself. Just stop caring about what other people think or find it totally hilarious. I think both work.

If you are not comfortable with anything the paragraphs above have to offer, I think you probably just need to smoke more weed. Which is my advice in every circumstance, for the record, even when someone says they are too high.

Nonetheless, I bet if you inhale 10,000 different strains, you’ll feel like you can pick stellar cannabis out of any lineup. There’s also a good chance you won’t care if other people don’t enjoy your strain selection. People argue about cannabis strains and greatness at cannabis cups, I’ll have you know.

If you feel too lazy for everything I’ve mentioned, you could snoop around online and look at weed porn photos and online pot menus. Or you could tour a plethora of pot shops and ask to smell all the weed. Take a whiff of hundreds of varieties and read an equal amount of strain reviews, and you will probably get a sense of what ganja is supposed to smell like. In addition to what it shouldn’t smell like, personal preferences aside.

Here are some quick and dirty tips 'cause I’m nice. If there are terpenes that can make reefer smell like rotten food, screw them, but remember rotten food and dank are not the same thing. I’m too much of an old hippie to care about moisture content percentages, but stems should snap easily, and the weed shouldn’t be so dry that it crumbles in a freakish way. Lastly, healthy fantastic pot can range in color from light lime green to deep, deep purple.

Growing weed, or even other plants and herbs, is a great way to become familiar with all the ways my favorite herb can become disgusting. Powdery mildew, aphids and bud rot, even the best gardeners have come face-to-face with these foes and more.

If you feel there is no time to get a green-thumb, just google “common cannabis diseases and cannabis fungus and cannabis pests” and look at loads of photos. Then you should be able to spot obvious signs of gross shit like powdery mildew.

In summation, all your problems will be solved by smoking weed more and caring about what other people think less.